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A photographer taking pictures of a BP refinery in Texas was detained by a BP security official, local police and a man who said he was from the Department of Homeland Security, according to ProPublica, a non-profit news organization in the U.S.
The photographer, Lance Rosenfield, said he was confronted by the officials shortly after arriving in Texas City, Texas, to work on a story that is part of an ongoing collaboration between PBS and ProPublica.
Rosenfield was released after officials looked through the pictures he had taken and took down his date of birth, Social Security number and other personal information, the photographer said. The information was turned over to the BP security guard who said this was standard procedure, ProPublica quoted Rosenfield as saying.
Rosenfield, a Texas-based freelance photographer, said he was followed by a BP employee after taking a picture on a public road near the refinery, and then cornered by two police cars at a gas station. The officials told Rosenfield they had the right to look at the pictures taken near the refinery and if he did not comply he would be "taken in," the photographer said according to ProPublica.
BP gave ProPublica the following statement after the incident:
"BP Security followed the industry practice that is required by federal law. The photographer was released with his photographs after those photos were viewed by a representative of the Joint Terrorism Task Force who determined that the photographer's actions did not pose a threat to public safety."
In response to BP, ProPublica's editor-in-chief Paul Steiger said:
"We certainly appreciate the need to secure the nation's refineries. But we're deeply troubled by BP's conduct here, especially when they knew we were working on deadline on critical stories about this very facility. And we see no reason why, if law enforcement needed to review the unpublished photographs, that should have included sharing them with a representative of a private company."
When msnbc.com contacted BP, spokeswoman Sheila Williams said there was nothing the firm wanted to add to its earlier comment.
http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/_new...-near-refinery
The Coast Guard says that rules aimed at keeping the public and news media away from the oil spill response are necessary to protect the environment and the people and equipment involved in the cleanup.
But the new "safety zone'' that the agency has set up within 65 feet of any response vessels or booms on the beach or the water mostly protects BP from bad PR.
Since booms are often placed more than 40 feet outside of islands or marsh grasses, this additional buffer will make it difficult to document the effect of oil on the land or wildlife.
That's not in the best interest of the Gulf Coast. Reporters and photographers, including those who work for The Times-Picayune, serve a vital function in documenting the disaster and the response.
This decision isn't the only one that has hampered media coverage of the oil spill. The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered that no media flights to photograph the spill can go below 3,000 feet without special permission.
Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, national incident commander for the spill, said that the safety zone restrictions are not unusual. He said BP didn't bring up the issue, but that local officials in Florida and elsewhere had raised safety concerns.
But plenty of local officials understand the need to inform the public. "Anytime you all want, you all can come in there wherever we go on our boats,'' Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told reporters.
At this point, the Coast Guard has not justified its position. In fact, its reasons keep changing. First the restrictions were needed to protect civilians. Now the claim is that workers and equipment are at risk. But what's clearly at risk is the public's right to know, and that deserves protection, too.
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-sp...rking_for.html
Under threat of a federal felony, National Incident Commander Thad Allen HAS BANNED ALL MEDIA ACCESS to boom operation sites and clean up sites. Allen's orders effectively bans all media - print, television, radio and Internet bloggers from talking to to any clean-up worker or to even come close to take pictures or videos of booms, clean-up workers, oil soaked birds, dead dolphins, dead marine life, burned and dead endangered sea turtles.
Allen has issued a blanket order that bans anyone from getting close to any spill clean up site, boom site, areas where there are clean up workers or any other oil disaster related area or persons effectively shutting down the first amendment rights of the media. The zone of exclusion is 65 feet. There was rumor that Coast Guard bosses wanted to impose a 300 feet exclusion zone but later relented to a 65 feet no trespass and exclusion zone.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/...#ixzz0soQt5dWJ
How's that for transparency?
The photographer, Lance Rosenfield, said he was confronted by the officials shortly after arriving in Texas City, Texas, to work on a story that is part of an ongoing collaboration between PBS and ProPublica.
Rosenfield was released after officials looked through the pictures he had taken and took down his date of birth, Social Security number and other personal information, the photographer said. The information was turned over to the BP security guard who said this was standard procedure, ProPublica quoted Rosenfield as saying.
Rosenfield, a Texas-based freelance photographer, said he was followed by a BP employee after taking a picture on a public road near the refinery, and then cornered by two police cars at a gas station. The officials told Rosenfield they had the right to look at the pictures taken near the refinery and if he did not comply he would be "taken in," the photographer said according to ProPublica.
BP gave ProPublica the following statement after the incident:
"BP Security followed the industry practice that is required by federal law. The photographer was released with his photographs after those photos were viewed by a representative of the Joint Terrorism Task Force who determined that the photographer's actions did not pose a threat to public safety."
In response to BP, ProPublica's editor-in-chief Paul Steiger said:
"We certainly appreciate the need to secure the nation's refineries. But we're deeply troubled by BP's conduct here, especially when they knew we were working on deadline on critical stories about this very facility. And we see no reason why, if law enforcement needed to review the unpublished photographs, that should have included sharing them with a representative of a private company."
When msnbc.com contacted BP, spokeswoman Sheila Williams said there was nothing the firm wanted to add to its earlier comment.
http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/_new...-near-refinery
The Coast Guard says that rules aimed at keeping the public and news media away from the oil spill response are necessary to protect the environment and the people and equipment involved in the cleanup.
But the new "safety zone'' that the agency has set up within 65 feet of any response vessels or booms on the beach or the water mostly protects BP from bad PR.
Since booms are often placed more than 40 feet outside of islands or marsh grasses, this additional buffer will make it difficult to document the effect of oil on the land or wildlife.
That's not in the best interest of the Gulf Coast. Reporters and photographers, including those who work for The Times-Picayune, serve a vital function in documenting the disaster and the response.
This decision isn't the only one that has hampered media coverage of the oil spill. The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered that no media flights to photograph the spill can go below 3,000 feet without special permission.
Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, national incident commander for the spill, said that the safety zone restrictions are not unusual. He said BP didn't bring up the issue, but that local officials in Florida and elsewhere had raised safety concerns.
But plenty of local officials understand the need to inform the public. "Anytime you all want, you all can come in there wherever we go on our boats,'' Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told reporters.
At this point, the Coast Guard has not justified its position. In fact, its reasons keep changing. First the restrictions were needed to protect civilians. Now the claim is that workers and equipment are at risk. But what's clearly at risk is the public's right to know, and that deserves protection, too.
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-sp...rking_for.html
Under threat of a federal felony, National Incident Commander Thad Allen HAS BANNED ALL MEDIA ACCESS to boom operation sites and clean up sites. Allen's orders effectively bans all media - print, television, radio and Internet bloggers from talking to to any clean-up worker or to even come close to take pictures or videos of booms, clean-up workers, oil soaked birds, dead dolphins, dead marine life, burned and dead endangered sea turtles.
Allen has issued a blanket order that bans anyone from getting close to any spill clean up site, boom site, areas where there are clean up workers or any other oil disaster related area or persons effectively shutting down the first amendment rights of the media. The zone of exclusion is 65 feet. There was rumor that Coast Guard bosses wanted to impose a 300 feet exclusion zone but later relented to a 65 feet no trespass and exclusion zone.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/...#ixzz0soQt5dWJ
How's that for transparency?
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